


The Actual Worst Thing

by fictionalcandie



Series: idiot boys making terrible decisions [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Arranged Marriage, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Idiots in Love, M/M, Oblivious, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 22:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2286138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalcandie/pseuds/fictionalcandie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just before James Potter starts his final year of Hogwarts, his blood-supremacist parents tell him they’ve arranged for his marriage—to Bellatrix Black.</p><p>James is <em>almost</em> as upset about this as Sirius is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Actual Worst Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally started as [comment fic](http://fictionalcandie.dreamwidth.org/6478.html?thread=35918#cmt35918) for an unwritten writing meme. Thanks as always to [duva](http://archiveofourown.org/users/duva) for the amazingly speedy beta!
> 
> I am not even the least bit sorry for this silliness.

Sirius nearly dropped his trunk on James’s head.

“No,” he said, while James levitated the trunk all the way onto the luggage rack. “No bloody way. You’re having me on, right? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“I wish,” said James. His eyes and the corners of his mouth were all droopy, he could _feel_ them being that way. He didn’t bother trying to get them to do anything different. “Your face would’ve been priceless.”

Sirius gawped. “But you can’t be _serious_.”

“Well, I could. If we made some Polyjuice.”

“ _Prongs_. Come on!”

“Yes, all right, I’m bloody serious,” James said, folding his expression into a scowl. He raked a hand through his hair, which was already messier than usual—and that should’ve been Sirius’s first clue, if he were on top of his game, but maybe he’d just figured James had run into Evans on the platform or something. “My stupid parents are making me marry your stupid cousin, stupid Bellatrix.”

“When do they expect you to…?”

“Next June,” said James.

“That’s right after we leave school!” said Sirius, looking horrified.

“Yeah. Pretty sure that’s deliberate, mate.”

Sirius dropped heavily onto the seat next to him. “But she’s so much older than you are!”

“That doesn’t seem to matter to them. Said she’d be lucky to have me,” James said, aware it came out in a sullen mutter. He didn’t care, he deserved to be a little sullen.

Sirius shook his head. “Too right. But _Bellatrix_?!”

“My life is officially over,” James replied.

Sirius made a low, appalled noise. James took it for agreement.

“Can you imagine what people are going to say once this gets out,” James continued, scrubbing hard at his scalp with both palms. This was so _frustrating_ and _horrible_ , Merlin. “And, oh, shit, the _lads_ when they find out!”

“It’ll be fine,” Sirius said, sort of absently. He looked like he was thinking extremely hard about something—which meant he wasn’t paying enough attention to James as this deserved. James glared at him.

“It will _not_ ,” he snapped. “Because they’re absolutely going to be terrible about it.”

Sirius shook his head. His eyes met James’s, and at least _they_ didn’t look distracted. “No. They won’t.”

“Oh, really. Why not?” James asked.

“We’re not going to tell them,” Sirius said.

“What?” James stared at him. “But they’re our friends. They’re _my_ friends.”

“We’re not going to tell them, because it’s not going to happen.”

James hesitated, just blinking for a moment. “Uh, I’m pretty sure Mum and Dad said it was, no matter what. I even said I didn’t want to, and they still said it would anyway.”

“It’s not gonna happen, because I’m going to get you out of this,” Sirius declared.

“Yeah, sure,” James said, with a short laugh.

Sirius gave him an intense look, but Wormtail and Moony found their compartment just then, already congratulating James over making Head Boy, and Sirius didn’t have a chance to say more. James couldn’t decide if he was relieved or not.

#

James thought about it long and hard (for about fifteen seconds as he was going to sleep that first night back in the dormitory), and he decided that if Sirius said he was going to take care of it, James wasn’t going to waste time or energy worrying. Sirius really was _much_ better at things that infuriated their parents. He would let James know if he needed any help.

“Oh, hello, Hephaestion,” James said, at breakfast midway through October, and reached for the letter his parents’ second owl was offering him.

Sirius snatched it before James could, and _he_ didn’t seem like seeing the Potters’ owl was unexpected.

“—my post, Padfoot?” James prompted, half-surprised.

“Only technically,” Sirius replied, absently, and opened it.

Whatever was in the letter made Sirius scowl.

“What’s wrong? What is it?” James asked.

Sirius opened his mouth, just as Moony sat down across from them. Sirius closed his mouth again, and frowned harder. “I’ll tell you later,” he said, after a moment.

James shrugged. “Okay,” he said, and went back to his toast.

#

“Well?” James said, when it was later—if ‘later’ meant ‘as soon as they got out of their last class and ditched Moony and Wormtail’.

“I wrote your parents, pretending to be you,” Sirius said.

James blinked. “Why would you do _that_?”

“I wanted to see what they’d do if you threatened to get the Ministry involved to keep you from having to get married.”

“Oh.” James considered that. It wasn’t actually a terrible idea. “Well? How did it work?”

“Terribly,” Sirius said.

“Why, what’d they say?” James asked.

Sirius coughed. He put a bracing hand on James’s shoulder, and gave him the bad news.

“They said they’d disinherit you and give your new racing broom to charity.”

James gaped at him.

How could Mum and Dad even _consider_ —His _broom_.

“Yeah,” Sirius said, sadly. He squeezed James shoulder, and dropped his hand. “Sorry, mate.”

“I’m gonna—go,” James muttered. “Thanks for, uh, trying?”

“I’m not giving up, James,” Sirius said.

“Yeah. Thanks,” James said.

He left for the Quidditch pitch, to practice on his broom that his parents were definitely _not_ giving to charity.

#

In November, James was ordered to use his Hogsmeade weekend to get fitted for what was sure to be the fanciest set of dress robes he’d ever seen.

“This is ridiculous,” James complained, as the seamstress directed her magical measuring tape around his hips for, seriously, the fourth time. “I don’t even get to pick the robes out!”

“I’m sure they won’t be bad robes,” Sirius said, from the other side of the little fitting room. There was a magical tape measure floating around him too, but _his_ didn’t look like it was having too much fun with his inseam. “I mean, I’ve seen a lot worse than our parents’ taste in fashion?”

James grumbled under his breath for a minute at the general unfairness of the world, then said, “I still think I should get to pick them out. It’s _my_ wedding, I ought to get to pick out the robes at least.”

“Yeah, well,” Sirius replied, and nothing else, but really he didn’t need to say anything else for James to get it.

His parents hadn’t even let him pick his spouse; why would they let him pick his robes.

“There,” the seamstress said, after another little while. “All done. We’ll put the measurements on file, but you lads are all right to leave.”

Still feeling irritable and ill-used, James hurried down off the fitting stand, and lost no time leading Sirius out of the shop.

“Thanks for coming with me,” James said, as Sirius drew up alongside him once they were on the street, safely blending into the crowds of other students.

“I was gonna need to get new robes to be your best man, anyway,” Sirius said, shrugging. “So don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, right.” James had meant to ask Sirius weeks ago if he’d do that, but he kept forgetting to in all the effort of pretending none of this was happening at all.

Sirius knocked their shoulders together. “Hey, I mean it, don’t worry about it.”

“Still gonna get me out of it?” James said, kidding, and offering Sirius what he could feel was probably a pretty sickly grin. It was the best he could do at the moment, though.

Sirius just looked at him gravely, like he couldn’t tell it was a joke, even though he could _always_ tell when James was joking. “I _promise_ ,” he said. “You won’t have to marry Bellatrix. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

A warm feeling started to spread in James’s chest, and his breath felt a little short, like maybe he’d been allergic to something in the robes shop—it _had_ smelled awfully flowery. James decided to ignore it, unless it got bad enough Sirius needed to take him to the hospital wing, because Sirius was giving him a sly, determined smile, and James didn’t want to ruin that. It was his favourite of Sirius’s smiles.

“Thanks,” he said, and smiled back.

#

Sirius had promised. When they were to James, Sirius _always_ kept his promises.

Knowing that, James felt pretty secure in the idea that he didn’t have to worry about the whole mess for a while.

“James, put on some decent robes, please,” Mum said, the first day of winter holidays. “We’re having dinner with the Blacks.”

James grinned. “With Sirius? Good, I think he put his Exploding Snap cards in my trunk by mis—”

“Not Walburga and Orion,” Dad called from the other room. “Cygnus and Druella.”

“But—Why?” James said, blankly, looking from Mum toward Dad and back again.

“Figured you ought to spend some time with your fiancee, before we announce the engagement over Christmas,” Dad said.

“Oh,” James said, his stomach sinking.

So, possibly that sense of security had been just a little false.

The other Black house wasn’t _quite_ as creepy as Grimmauld Place, which James had never liked. It was still pretty creepy, though.

Plus, there were _Blacks_ there, without even the advantage of any of them being the one he actually liked.

“Good evening, James,” Mr Black said, with the same sort of smug tone a cat used when it had a mouse cornered. “Welcome to the family, eh?”

“Yeah,” James said, leadenly. “Hi.”

Bellatrix acknowledged him with a nod, and said, derisively, “There’s a hole in your sleeve.”

James knew that. He’d chosen these robes _on purpose_ because he knew that. “Oh, is there? Oops,” he said, as innocent as he could be.

“How about we go into the dinning room and sit down?” Mrs Black suggested.

“That would be lovely,” Mum said, a little relieved, and stopped glaring at James for the sleeve-thing.

They made him sit next to Bellatrix. If she minded, she didn’t let it show.

That might have been because she seemed to be so very occupied with _enjoying James’s unhappiness_ and making his discomfort a thousand times worse.

“I’ve already picked out what we should do for our honeymoon,” she said, with a cool, polite smile that was about ninety percent teeth. “Do you like mountains? Woods?”

“They’re okay,” James said, eyeing her warily.

“I found this lovely remote cabin in a Romanian forest.” She leaned a little closer. “Have you ever been hunting, Potter? For deer, not Mug—anything else.”

“ _What_? No, of course not.”

“Ever eaten venison?”

“ _No_ ,” James said, appalled, and wondered if he could get away with claiming self defense if he stabbed her with a meat fork.

Since nobody at the table knew he was an Animagus, probably not.

“What about rabbit?” Bellatrix asked, smiling more, like his horror _amused_ her.

“I’m a _vegetarian_ ,” James said, and took a furious bite of his steak.

Bellatrix chuckled. James had to put down his cutlery just to make sure he didn’t stab her, after all.

Even worse than sitting next to her during dinner, James got left alone with Bellatrix in the corner of the parlour after they ate.

“Oh joy,” he said, throwing a dark look at her, then over at their parents as well, for good measure. “More time with _you_.”

“It almost wasn’t me, you know,” Bellatrix said, sounding dismissive, like it didn’t even matter to her.

James paused, tried to figure out what she meant. “What wasn’t?”

“That wound up with you,” she said. There went her teeth again. “They tried to get Cissy to do it, but she insisted on keeping Lucius.”

“That’s nice for her,” James started to say, insincerely, but—

“Wait, your sister’s dating a _Malfoy_?”

“He has more money than you do, but your family name is older,” Bellatrix said, and if she wasn’t such a terrible human being James might have thought her tone was consoling. “I _do_ think it’s a poor decision on her part.”

“We have plenty of money!” James said, indignantly.

“So do I,” Bellatrix retorted, that weird tone gone. She thrust her goblet at him. “Go find a house elf to refill this.”

#

“Your family is full of nasty, horrible people.”

James had come over to Grimmauld Place the next morning, looking for Sirius. He found him in the library.

Sirius looked up from the book he was reading. “You’ve noticed finally. Why don’t you say it a little louder, I don’t think everyone in the house heard you that time.”

Trying to keep the anger seething under his skin from getting out and blowing up anything nearby that was ancient and priceless and _very important_ to the Black family honour or whatever rubbish, James crossed his arms and threw himself down in the wingback chair next to Sirius’s.

“What brought on this revelation, anyway?” Sirius asked.

“I had to go to dinner with your aunt and uncle and _Bellatrix_ last night,” James said.

Sirius face screwed up.

“Yeah, that’s how I felt too,” James agreed. “Oh, here.”

He pulled the Exploding Snap deck Sirius had mis-packed out of his pocket, and tossed it over to him. Sirius let it fall into his lap.

“Thanks, I was looking for that. Who was horriblest?”

James sighed, and let himself relax back into the chair a little. He still scowled at the room. “That’s not a word, Padfoot.”

“Yeah, okay, but who was it?”

“Bellatrix,” James said firmly. Sirius’s eyebrows went up. James explained, “She asked if I wanted to eat _deer_.”

“I’ll feed her to a hippogriff,” Sirius said.

“Where are you going to get a hippogriff?” James asked, momentarily distracted from the obvious hell that was his life.

“I don’t know, it’ll come to me.” Sirius gestured dismissively. “Was she that level of awful the _whole_ time?”

James nodded emphatically. “ _Yes_. You’ve got to get me out of this, I mean it. She’s _horrible_.”

“About that,” Sirius said, and finally put aside the book.

James raised both eyebrows expectantly, and waited.

Sirius smirked his very best up-to-no-good smirk. “I’ve had an idea.”

“ _Excellent_ ,” James said, and prepared to listen carefully.

Sirius told him his idea.

There was a long silent moment.

“ _Seriously_ , Padfoot? _That’s_ your idea?” James demanded.

“Yes,” Sirius said, unashamed. “Why, have you got a better one?”

James did not have a better one.

“Fine,” he said, and scowled at the room some more.

“Good. You can go ‘round tomorrow and try it out,” Sirius said. He lifted his book back up. James let him to it; he was _trying_ to help, after all.

#

Bellatrix met James in the foyer of the other Black house when he showed up to talk to her like Sirius told him to.

“What do you want?” she asked.

She didn’t even say hello, but that was fine with James. He would have preferred if the two of them had never had any reason to even pretend to be civil to each other.

“When we’re married,” James started, only gagging on the words a _little_ as he forced them out.

“What about it?” Bellatrix asked, crossing her arms.

James stalled. He didn’t want to be doing this—saying what he just had had been bad enough—and actually talking about _when he was married to Bellatrix_ kind of made him want to crawl into the deepest, darkest vault in Gringotts and never come out. He’d run off and do it right now, too, if he didn’t know Sirius had a massive dislike of lightless close spaces.

But Sirius had told him to talk to Bellatrix, to tell her this. James could almost hear Sirius in his head, reminding him what he was supposed to be saying.

Bellatrix made an impatient little huffing noise, reminding him she was still there and he was still not talking. She raised an eyebrow, that same pointed, condescending expression that all the Blacks seemed to have learned in the cradle. “ _Yes_?” she said. “Did you actually have something to _say_?”

He might as well have been a house elf sniveling at her feet, from her tone and expression.

She was _so unpleasant_.

“I’m not going to be faithful. Ever. At all,” James blurted. He tilted his chin up and waited to see how she would take _that_.

Bellatrix _laughed_. “What, and you think I would be?” she said. She smiled, and it was mean and full of teeth. “That’s _adorable_.”

“I didn’t—” James started.

“I don’t know how things work in your head, Potter, but here in the _real world_ , spouses like us _aren’t_ ,” she said.

“Right,” James said, for lack of anything better.

Bellatrix gave him a pitying look. “You don’t seriously think _anyone_ is, do you?”

James glared at her.

“My parents are,” he said.

She laughed again.

“They _are_!” James snapped.

“Of course they are, boy,” Bellatrix said, while her face said that of course they _weren’t_.

Merlin, James _hated_ her.

“Sirius used to drop spiders in your mouth while you slept,” he told her, viciously satisfied at the expression that brought to her face, and left.

#

“It didn’t work,” James greeted Sirius with, when Sirius fell through his bedroom window that night. “She didn’t care.”

Sirius blinked up at him from the floor a couple of times, and grimaced. He looked disappointed, but not _surprised_.

“I was afraid it might not,” he said, confirming James’s terrible suspicions. He pushed himself off the floor, dusted off his robes—even though there was _no dirt_ on James’s floor, the house elves would never allow it—and flopped down sideways on James’s bed.

James scowled. He would have thrown his sugar quill at Sirius’s face, but Sirius would only end up picking it up off the bedspread and eating it, after. _James_ was going to be the one to eat it. He _deserved_ it, after that encounter with Bellatrix. “If you thought it might not work then why did you make me do it!”

“Because there was a chance it _might have_ ,” Sirius replied, reasonably. He sprawled out and stole James’s favourite pillow, hugging it to his chest.

“Yeah, well, it was _really awful_.”

“Sorry,” Sirius said. James decided to be gracious and forgive him, and spread out over his legs. They were taking up too much of James’s bed, so they deserved it.

“Now what?” James asked.

Sirius hummed. He made his second most thoughtful face. “We can try it on your parents, next,” he said, like it was decided.

#

“If I marry Bellatrix, she’s going to be unfaithful to me,” James told his parents.

“Really, dear, you can’t know that,” Mum said. She shook her head, giving James the look she usually wore when he’d disappointed her.

James gritted his teeth.

“I _can_ ,” he said, “because she _told me_ she wouldn’t be faithful.”

“She could change her mind, once you’re married,” Mum said.

James really, honestly doubted that.

“Just wait and see, dear.”

She smiled at him. James scowled, wishing he had a bombshell that would work on her the way the Sirius-and-spiders one had worked on Bellatrix. He didn’t; up until she and Dad had gone barmy, Sirius had _liked_ them.

“I don’t _want_ to wait and see,” James said. He thought about adding that he didn’t want to marry Bellatrix at all, but that hadn’t seemed to have any effect the first hundred times he’d said it, back during the summer. It seemed unlikely that it would suddenly have more of one now.

Dad rolled his eyes, which James thought was really uncalled for, and said, “I’ve heard all about what you get up to at school—”

James _highly_ doubted _that_ , or else he and Sirius would’ve both been grounded and banned from seeing each other for the last five years at least, and also their parents would probably have tried to get Moony expelled.

“—so I know you’re clever when you want to be,” Dad went on blithely, because he wasn’t a Legilimens, thank Merlin and all the Founders. “If she shames you, just come up with one of your schemes so she can’t again.”

‘My scheme is to _not marry her_ ,’ James didn’t say, because he wasn’t an idiot.

“I’m going to tell Sirius to look into keeping acromantulas as pets,” he said, instead.

“That’s nice, dear,” Mum said.

#

“It’s like they don’t want me to be happy!” James wailed at Sirius through their two-way mirrors, once he was alone again and had the chance to pull his out.

“Well,” Sirius said, “they _did_ betroth you to _Bellatrix_.”

James huffed and put his head in his hands. “I always knew they never loved me,” he said, under his breath.

“They love you, they’re just misguided,” Sirius said. He also made a bunch of odd noises that James thought were probably supposed to be comforting shushing sounds, like Mum used to make when James had night terrors as a child.

Sirius was clearly rubbish at them, because they weren’t very comforting. Then he said, “We’ll think of something else, okay? I _am_ getting you out of this, James,” which _was_.

#

“We’ll be announcing the engagement tonight,” Mrs Black—Sirius’s mum, not Bellatrix’s—said first thing when Kreacher let them into the parlour and closed the door behind them. She and her husband and Bellatrix’s parents were the only ones in the room. “As planned.”

Well, that explained why Mum and Dad had insisted they needed to show up early at Grimmauld Place for the Blacks’ annual Christmas party. James held back a groan.

“Good,” Dad said. He threw a tired look at James, who didn’t hunch his shoulders sheepishly because he _hadn’t done anything wrong_. “Maybe then certain parties will stop—”

“I think Bellatrix is cheating on James already,” Sirius said loudly, bursting into the room without knocking or announcing himself or anything.

“—doing _that_ ,” Dad finished, with a deep sigh.

“What is it _now_ ,” Mr Black—Bellatrix’s dad, not Sirius’s—said, giving Sirius the same look Professor McGonagall did sometimes, the one that meant they were really wishing Sirius was somebody else’s problem _all_ the time rather than just most of it.

“She’s sleeping with somebody else,” Sirius replied, still loudly. Behind him, lurking in the hallway like he’d thought he was just following Sirius in to see their parents, not to _make a scene_ , Regulus winced, and half raised his hands toward his ears.

“Is she really,” Mum said.

Sirius smirked. “Just _ask_ her.”

“Kreacher,” Mr Black—Sirius’s dad—called, and the elf popped back into the middle of the room. “Where’s Bellatrix?”

“Mistress Bellatrix is in the library,” Kreacher said.

“Very well. Have her—”

“With that Lestrange boy,” Kreacher added.

“See?” Sirius said, with great satisfaction. “I told you!”

James figured that was his cue—the pointed stare Sirius was giving him was a pretty big clue. “I won’t marry her if she’s unfaithful already,” he said.

Nobody looked very surprised. Or impressed.

Mrs Black—Bellatrix’s mum— _did_ look _extremely annoyed_ , though.

“I’m getting tired of this, young man,” Mr Black said, echoing the look on his wife’s face. “It’s becoming insulting.”

“As you don’t have anything of actual _relevance_ to say, I suggest you cease wasting our time with your frivolous complaints,” Mrs Black—Sirius’s mum—added.

James looked to his parents for help, but they seemed just as annoyed.

He deflated.

“Tell Bellatrix to join us,” Mr Black—Sirius’s dad—told Kreacher. “And send Lestrange away, the party doesn’t start until eight o’clock.”

“Yes, master.”

Once Kreacher disappeared again, Mr Black looked at his sons and pointed to the floor in the middle of the room. “Get in here, both of you, and for Salazar’s sake, shut the door.”

“Sorry,” Regulus muttered, doing as he was told and looking all droopy and embarrassed about it.

Sirius just stared at everybody defiantly.

“I hope you realise that you’re being ridiculous,” Mrs—Sirius’s mum said, glaring at Sirius.

“I’m not,” Sirius said, crossing his arms. “I’m looking out for James.”

“At least he dressed for the party before he tried to cause a scene,” Mum said, to Sirius’s mum and dad. “We practically had to force James into his robes and out the door to get here on time.”

“And even then he tried to sneak into his old set of dress robes,” Dad added.

“Sirius tried to claim he accidentally set his on fire,” Sirius’s uncle said.

“We’re standing right here, you know,” Sirius said, looking mutinous.

Regulus rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure they couldn’t forget if they wanted to, Sirius.”

“Nobody asked you,” James muttered. Regulus just rolled his eyes again.

Bellatrix came in before James had to kick Sirius’s brother. She glanced around, apparently not surprised to see them all in the room, looking unjustly long-suffering while James and Sirius glared at everybody. “You wanted me, Uncle Orion?” she said, to Sirius’s dad.

“Are you sleeping with a Lestrange?” Sirius asked, before anybody else could speak.

“Not anymore, I just broke up with him until after I’ve given Potter an heir,” Bellatrix said.

“There, see?” Sirius’s aunt said. “Nothing to worry about.”

Sirius made a noise. He looked like he was in pain. “ _No_ , there _is_ , because she’s going to—”

“Really, really enough now, son,” Dad said, warningly, narrowing his eyes at Sirius.

“She doesn’t even _like_ me!” James protested.

“No, but I don’t like Rodolphus, either,” Bellatrix said.

“I don’t see what affection has to do with any of this,” Sirius’s mum said, apparently to the room at large. “We’re talking about _marriage_ , after all.”

Then, in a weak moment of _extreme_ frustration, James yelled, “Well, what if I want to _love_ who I marry!”

The horrified, wide-eyed look on Sirius’s face told him right away that this question had not been a strategically sound maneuver. Bloody hell. Dealing with people was so much harder than Quidditch tactics. James winced, just enough for Sirius to pick up on and know James regretted it. Sirius groaned and buried his face in his hands, which wasn’t helpful at all.

Mum’s lips thinned dangerously. She shared a look with Dad, who was frowning slightly.

“Are you trying to say that you don’t want to marry Bellatrix,” Dad said, in the heavy way that told James he’d best think carefully about his answer or he might find himself without dessert for a month, “because you’re in love with somebody else?”

James’s eyes widened, and all he could do was sputter. In _love_ with—

James loved his parents ( _usually_ ), and Quidditch, and Sunday mornings in autumn, and Eton mess, and Sirius; and he liked flirting with people, and kissing, and the way firelight hit Lily Evans’s hair when she sat close to the hearth in the common room. James wasn’t _in love_ with anybody, and he hadn’t planned to be for at least two years yet.

“I—That— _Really_ —” James finally managed to choke out.

Sirius’s hands fell away from his face and he looked over, alarmed. “James, wait!” he blurted, but it was too late.

“— _no_ ,” James finished, and promptly wanted to bite his own tongue off, because Sirius was swearing under his breath and looking defeated again.

Mum and Dad’s expressions smoothed out, which was usually a good thing, but James was pretty sure it wasn’t, in this case. Mr and Mrs Black, and the other Mr and Mrs Black, were all making impatient grumbling noises and Bellatrix was smirking—Regulus just looked deeply embarrassed to know _any_ of them—but James was ignoring all of them on principle.

“Well, in _that_ case,” Mum said. She propped her hands on her hips, and James knew she meant business. “I really do think that’s _quite enough_ out of you.”

“It most certainly _is_ ,” grumbled one of the Mr Blacks, in a sour tone. “These shenanigans of yours are getting out of hand.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Sirius groaned, piteously, from behind his hands.

“I think it would be best if you went upstairs and waited for the party to start somewhere out of the way,” Dad said to James. He was pinching the bridge of his nose, and looked like he’d very much enjoy a nice stiff glass of Firewhiskey.

“ _Fine_ ,” James said, sullenly.

Sirius lifted his head from his hands and gave James a _look_.

James quickly added, “I’ll use Sirius’s room,” and left the room before they could tell him not to.

#

Three minutes after James had thrown himself on Sirius’s bed and pulled a pillow over his head—he’d screamed into it a few times, but there’d been nobody to witness it so it didn’t count—the door opened and then closed again quickly.

“That was a _disaster_ ,” James told Sirius, through the pillow.

“You’re an idiot,” Sirius said back. He walked over and yanked the pillow away.

James glared. “How am _I_ the idiot? It was your stupid plan that didn’t work.”

“You should have told your parents that _of course_ you were in love with somebody else,” Sirius said. He whacked James in the stomach with the pillow once, then tossed it carelessly over his shoulder and crawled into the bed too. He stretched out on his belly next to James.

“How would _that_ have helped?” James demanded, and tried to elbow Sirius in the kidney for the annoyed look on his face. Sirius wriggled and dodged it, and James gave up, because Sirius’s elbows were pointier anyway and he didn’t want to risk retaliation.

“Well, true, my family wouldn’t have cared,” Sirius said. He grimaced wildly, to show just how very much the Blacks didn’t care about things like love. “But your parents totally might have been swayed.”

James snorted. “I don’t think so. This whole thing started in the first place because apparently I talked about Evans too much over the summer and they were afraid I was gonna marry a Muggleborn.”

Without warning, Sirius lurched upright and stared down at James with his mouth open. “Are you _kidding_ me right now?”

“What?” James said, defensively. He was confused why that seemed to matter so much to Sirius, and he did not like being confused. Especially not because of _Sirius_ , of all people.

Sirius groped for his second pillow and smacked James with that one as well, in the face this time.

“Hey! Si! Stop, you’re gonna mess up my hair. C’mon!”

“James Potter, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that in the _first place_ ,” Sirius said, his voice furious, and hit James again.

He looked like he was considering trying to _smother_ James with the pillow, so James yanked it out of his hands and threw it as far away from the bed as he could. If Sirius was really invested in killing James with bedding, he would just have to go to the trouble of pulling out his wand and summoning his murder weapon back.

“What’s the big deal?” James asked.

“It’s _relevant information_ , you idiot!”

“How is that relevant?”

“If I’d known _why_ your parents suddenly lost their minds,” Sirius said, speaking slowly, like he thought he was talking to a particularly dim kneazle, “I could have tried just reassuring them that I’d never let you do that.”

“But, Padfoot,” James said, blinking and frowning up at Sirius, “you _would_ let me do that.”

“ _They_ don’t know that!”

Sirius looked like he was wanting that pillow back for violence purposes again after all, so James flailed into a sitting position too, to distract him.

“Well, why don’t you just go downstairs and do it now?” James asked. He thought it was perfectly reasonable, but Sirius just kept giving him that _how did I get stuck with this idiot_ look. “What?”

“It’s too late now. They’ll never believe it,” Sirius said.

“Why _not_?”

Apparently giving up on the pillow, Sirius just used his own hands, and shoved James back down. “Because we _tried too hard_ already.”

That—actually made sense.

It might have been enough reassurance back in September, especially if Sirius had put on his sincere face, but now it would just look like another attempt to get James out of it because James and Sirius were desperate and would try anything. That it actually _would_ be a frantic last-ditch effort wasn’t even the point.

“Oh,” James said, his voice small.

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed, all the anger going out of his voice. He flopped back down next to James.

The room was quiet for a little while.

“In an hour it’s gonna be official and I’m gonna be stuck with your hideous cousin for life,” James said, eventually.

Sirius shuddered. He shoved his face against the duvet and didn’t say anything.

“I know,” James agreed. He was kind of impressed with how despondent he managed to sound. “It’s _horrible_.”

Sirius grunted.

After a moment, James said, without any real hope, “I could just leave. Now, before any of the guests arrive.”

Sirius turned his face away from the mattress to glare at James with one eye. “Neither of us have anywhere for you to go that isn’t each other’s houses—and remember what happened that Christmas when I tried to come and live with you,” he said.

“Well, there’s always Moony’s place, his parents would probably—”

Sirius frowned, and scoffed. “Really. You want to call _our parents’_ attention to _Moony_. I’m sure that’ll go over really well.”

“At least it’s an _idea_ ,” James snapped. He brought his arms up and ran his hands through his hair. “I feel like my brain is dying.”

“You could run away. I mean, all the way, away. Go live as a Muggle, or something.”

It was James’s turn to scoff. “And leave you here alone, to face that lot all angry?”

“I’m not the one who’s supposed to be getting married,” Sirius pointed out.

“They’d know you helped me. Even if they didn’t, they’d take it out on you, anyway.”

Sirius bit his lip. After a second, he said, “I could come with you.”

“Oh, yeah. The both of us, nowhere to go, and no money? Come off it, Padfoot.”

“But—”

“Face it,” said James, though he _really_ didn’t want to. It felt like signing his own death warrant. “We’re out of options.”

“Fuck,” Sirius said, feelingly.

James stared at Sirius until he couldn’t bear seeing that morose face anymore, and looked away. “This is shit.”

“No fucking kidding.”

#

“I could hex her,” Sirius said a few minutes later. He sounded piteous and not very hopeful at all.

“Bellatrix is a duelling champion, Si,” James said, because maybe Sirius had forgotten. He probably had, actually, since he did seem to willfully repress everything to do with his family when they weren’t actively in their presence. “You’d never win. Plus she’d probably use dark magic. Then I’d be married _and_ you’d be dead.”

Sirius gave him a woeful look.

“Yeah,” James said, with a miserable sigh. “I _know_.”

#

James was enjoying his last half an hour as a free man by kicking Sirius’s ankle lightly, until Sirius got annoyed and draped his leg over both of James’s to hold his feet still, and then freeing his foot and starting over. It wasn’t the worst way to spend it, James thought. Then—

“Oh. _Oh_.”

James looked up. “What?” he asked, trying to figure out why Sirius had gone so still, suddenly.

“They talked about betrothing you to Narcissa, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, but she wouldn’t give up Malfoy.” James snorted. “Stupid choice, if you ask me.”

“Very stupid,” Sirius agreed, but it sounded absent, the way he got when his brain was somewhere else. “I did some asking, and apparently they considered Andi, too.”

“What?” James sputtered. “But—but they _disowned_ her. And she’s _married_!”

“Yeah, apparently it’d be too much work to get rid of her Muggle,” Sirius said, waving a hand to show how uninteresting he found that tidbit. “No, James, listen, they considered _everyone_ , didn’t they?”

“Uh,” said James. “I guess?”

“So they just wanted a Black for you to marry, right?”

James squinted at him. “Where are you going with this?”

Sirius leaned forward, every line of him earnest. “ _So_ , we just give ‘em a different Black.”

“I think if there was a different Black they wouldn’t have gone with Bellatrix,” James couldn’t resist pointing out.

Sirius gave him a flat look. “James.”

“What!” A thought struck him, and James flapped an anxious hand at Sirius. “Oh, Merlin, please tell me you don’t mean Regulus. He’s _underage_ and also a huge brat and I don’t like him.”

Sirius pulled a horrified face, better than a denial in words would’ve been.

“Then who—” James started to ask.

“ _I’m_ a Black,” Sirius said, impatiently.

James stared.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah,” Sirius said.

James blinked. Several times. “That’s…”

“Yeah,” Sirius said again.

“That’s _brilliant_ ,” James said, and grinned widely, as relief swept through him.

Sirius smiled back. “Yeah.”

“But will they really go for it, do you think?”

“Of course,” Sirius said, confident. “We just have to sell it right.”

“You’re always good at that,” James agreed.

Sirius smile turned into outright beaming. He rubbed his hands together. “We need to talk to them now, tonight.”

“Tonight?” James pulled a face. “Do we really have to do this with _everyone_ here?”

“They’re sending the notice to the Prophet in the morning,” said Sirius. “After that, it’ll be too late.”

#

“Dad,” said James. “Can I talk to you and Mum for a second? In private?”

“We’re at a party, James. Can’t it wait?”

“It really kind of can’t,” said James.

Mum frowned at him, disapproving, and Dad opened his mouth like he was going to say something, probably exceedingly stern. He didn’t get the chance.

“I don’t see,” Sirius’s mum’s raised voice came from the other side of the room, “what you could have to say which couldn’t be said _here_.”

“No, really,” said Sirius, his voice only slightly louder than normal. And, James winced to hear, more than a little sardonic.

“If this is another of your outlandish schemes,” Sirius’s aunt began, angrily.

“It’s not a _scheme_ ,” Sirius said. “It’s a _reason_. A good one this time!”

“I find that difficult to believe,” Dad said, and he and Mum started to move across the room toward Sirius and his family. James trailed after them, trying to decide if he was supposed to just blurt out the solution he and Sirius had reached now, or wait until they’d got all the parents alone, or what.

They came up to the Blacks just in time to see Sirius taking a deep breath and declaring, “I want it to be _me_ , not Bellatrix.”

“You _what_ ,” Sirius’s dad said, and he sounded really, honestly surprised.

“I think we’d better take this elsewhere,” Mum decided, and Sirius’s mum nodded.

“Cygnus,” Sirius’s mum said, already heading for the door out to the hallway, “get Bellatrix and meet us in—the _kitchen_.”

The last word was said with _extreme_ distaste, but then, they didn’t really have a choice if they wanted to have this conversation away from their guests. James had never seen an adult Black in the Grimmauld Place kitchen; he felt sort of smug that now he was going to see _four_ of them there, and there wasn’t anything they could do to get out of it.

“Now then, what is this foolishness you’re going on about _now_ ,” Sirius’s dad demanded, as soon as they’d all filed into the kitchen.

“I want—” Sirius began to repeat himself.

“Perhaps we ought to wait for Bellatrix,” Sirius’s aunt suggested.

“No need,” Sirius’s uncle said, coming in the kitchen door, with Bellatrix behind him. And, behind them, with a face that said he just couldn’t help his curiosity and thought he’d probably regret it, came Regulus.

“Right. Well, go on, then, Sirius,” Mum said. She was looking between Sirius and James like she suspected the whole thing was a great fat joke and she was waiting on the punchline.

James crossed his arms and glared at her, because if there was any joke here it was the farce of a marriage she and Dad were trying to shove at him. He’d been waiting on the punchline to _that_ since summer, and she still hadn’t got to it yet.

Sirius squared up his shoulders, pulled a determined face, and said, “I want to be the one to marry James.”

“Absolutely not,” Sirius’s aunt said automatically, then seemed to draw up short as she actually realised what he’d said. “You _what_?”

“He wants to marry me,” James said. For good measure, he added, “And that’s what I want, too. To marry him. Not Bellatrix.”

“This is preposterous, we’re announcing the engagement _tonight_ ,” Sirius’s mum said. “We’ve already drafted the notice we’re going to run in the Prophet tomorrow!”

“You let James marry me,” Sirius said, firmly, like he meant it, “or we elope.”

It was difficult, but James managed not to give him a startled look—they hadn’t mentioned _that_ threat, when they’d been planning. He crossed his arms and nodded instead.

“Sirius,” Sirius’s dad said, warningly.

“To the _Muggle_ world,” Sirius added.

“ _Sirius_ ,” Sirius’s mum said, horrified.

“We’ll do it,” James said, because it felt like it was his turn to speak, and he couldn’t think of anything else. “You know we will.”

“James,” Mum groaned, hiding her eyes behind one gloved, be-ringed hand like looking at him pained her.

James stiffened his jaw, and straightened his spine. “Mum, this is what I _want_.”

“Oh, _James_.”

Sirius’s mum huffed, cutting off anything else Mum might have said. “Do you have any idea in the name of Merlin the _fuss_ involved in what you’re suggesting, children? The clothing _alone_ would—”

“Come off it, Mum. It won’t be that much trouble,” protested Sirius. “You’ve already picked out James’s robes, right? So we just order another set like them, slap on our family crest instead, and we’re good to go.”

“A Black cannot simply be married in _off the rack_ —”

“They’ve got my measurements, I know they do, because they got taken the same time James was being fitted.”

Sirius’s mum looked like she wanted very badly to disagree with that, but couldn’t come up with anything sufficiently condescending to say. James watched it with glee.

“Best mate, remember?” said Sirius, so cocky James almost wanted to slap him—attitude was _not_ going to help them right now—but he also sort of wanted to hug him or kiss him or something, because it had been weeks since James had seen Sirius looking that pleased with himself. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it.

“But _why_?” Sirius’s uncle asked, despairingly. He was looking between Sirius and James like he just couldn’t understand what was happening. “Why do either of you even care if Bellatrix—”

“You were lying earlier,” Regulus said, in a dawning tone like he’d just realised something, and Sirius’s uncle cut himself off to stare at _Regulus_ , instead.

“What?” Sirius’s mum demanded, rounding on her younger son. “What are you talking about?”

Regulus flushed, but he waved a hand at James, and then at Sirius. “In the parlour earlier. He said he wasn’t in love with anybody but he was _lying_. Weren’t you? You and Sirius—”

James went to correct Regulus, but Sirius kicked him in the ankle and glared, and he clapped his mouth shut and stayed carefully mute.

“I see,” Sirius’s dad said, and everyone got quiet for a moment while they took that in.

“Well,” Dad muttered. He gave in and went to the sideboard, pouring himself a large drink. “That explains a great deal, anyway.”

“Yes, it does. No wonder you don’t want to marry me, Potter,” Bellatrix said, speaking for the first time since she’d entered the room. She was smiling; James really wished she wouldn’t. “You already have your claws in the heir. I wouldn’t want to marry me, either.”

James ears burned. Sirius just sneered at her.

“Nobody would,” Sirius said—and her laugh covered up the choking noise James could see Regulus making.

“Oh, very well, then,” Sirius’s aunt said, throwing her arms up in apparent disgust. “Let Sirius have him, we can find someone else for Bellatrix.”

“I dare say they deserve each other,” Sirius’s uncle said, under his breath, but everybody heard him just fine.

Dad smothered a noise that sounded insultingly like a snicker. James ignored it.

“You’ve no objection, I trust?” Sirius’s dad said, to Dad, apparently having caught the smothered snicker same as James had.

“None,” Dad said, shaking his head. “This might even be better.”

“Fine, then,” Sirius’s dad said. “Sirius will be the one to marry James.”

Heart pounding with success, and something warm and soaring spreading through his chest, James shared a triumphant look with Sirius, who grinned back wildly. Sirius had done it, he’d really done it; he’d kept his promise.

He’d _fixed it_.

“If that’s all settled, we should get back to the party,” Mum said.

“Yes,” Sirius’s mum said. She was still giving Sirius dirty, displeased looks, but she _had_ agreed—well, more or less—so James wasn’t going to worry about them. “We still have an engagement to announce, don’t we.”

#

Dad and Sirius’s mum gave them narrow-eyed looks as they gathered at the front of the room, until James—rolling his eyes—reached out and caught Sirius’s hand in his. Sirius snickered, quickly cut off, and dutifully twined their fingers together to hold on properly.

“That’s better,” Mum said to them. She looked relieved, and James figured she was probably glad to have an explanation for James’s reluctance that actually made sense to her. “Now maybe you’ll _behave_ , boys.”

“Your attention, please,” Sirius’s dad called, in a way that made it clear it wasn’t a request. “Walburga and I, and our friends—”

Suddenly, Sirius’s eyes widened, and his hand went painfully tight around James’s.

“Prongs,” he said, with the air of a man in the middle of a horrible realisation.

“What?” said James, wondering if he should be worried, half his attention still on their parents.

“James,” Sirius said, urgently. “James, we’re _getting married_.”

“Oh,” James said, feeling the colour drain out of his face.

“—are pleased to announce the betrothal of our sons, Sirius Black and James Potter!”

The room filled with applause, but James and Sirius just stared at each other.

“Oh, _bugger_.”


End file.
